NOT EXACTLY THE HEALTHIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, BUT WE COULD KICK YOUR ASS

So...we survived the summer of blood, we survived it all...from the beginning to the end.
But how did we do it?
More times than not, when a shift was over, we would grab beers and go to my place and watch war movies...the same one's, over and over. full metal jacket was a fave, so was hamburger hill.Not to mention a little psycho-drama gem called 84 Charlie MoPic.
Everybody had a hobby, some went hunting or fishing, some went camping, some of us got into music, learned an instrument. But we all had one thing in common to some degree or another.
No fear. I was never concerned about any threat that I may encounter out in the world, CSO duty instilled a confidence in you in this regard, we would go over interventions like football teams review game films, picking them apart, planning strategies so we could do it better the next time.
I carry that confidence with me to this day, I know that if the heavy shit goes down, unless you have a gun, I will prevail.
My experiences gave me a survival instinct, and it gave me PTSD or something very much like it.
It was my rule out diagnosis when I finally went to see a therapist and we never really ruled it out.
I never went looking for trouble, it just found me, but rarely was it the throw down variety, in fact, I never threw down outside of work. I came close a few times, but I think I freaked them out and nothing ever happened beyond words.
I'm really good with words in situations like this...I learned the power of them in CSO.
After a while you get tired of kids thinking that your presence on the unit was an invitation to a fight, so you work on your verbal skills and your affect.
The right words with the right affect can diffuse a situation to the point of the patient walking with you to the security room. Knowing a patient's diagnosis = knowing what to say in a way that appeals to that brand of crazy.
For example, That kid that sent me to the ER with a concussion was a paranoid schizophrenic. He was transferred to an open unit two months after almost KO'ing me and one night he was losing it on his new unit. His delusions evolved around power and control and I knew this ( He had a blue gingham teddy bear that he had drawn hitler features and a nazi uniform on with a sharpie pen! ).
Anyhow, we get the call and it was my turn to respond.Knowing that this kid had kicked my ass, my team mates offered to go in my place. I said thanks but no thanks, I gotta deal with this kid successfully sometime,now seems like a good time. I headed to the unit while my team mates called back up in the event it got ugly. There was a high probability it would.
I was soon joined by 9 other staff on the unit and we came up with a plan. I would attempt to verbally de-escalate him and get him to walk to the security room, if that failed, we would rush him and restrain him on my cue of "come on, XXX, it's tellin' time".( That was, and is, one of my favorite cues, my other fav was "OK, I'm going to count to three..." and we would go on two :P ).
So, I initiate the intervention and at first, I'm getting nowhere, he's standing on his bed and reminding me of the ass kicking he gave me, he's refusing to leave the unit. I knew that if we had to restrain him, I would have point and the shit would be on. I didn't want to get hit again.
He suddenly noticed my back up behind me in the hall and the doorway. He started to get nervous and was balling up his fists ( when you're trying to read someone, don't focus on the face...focus on the hands and feet ).
I jumped on the thought that he really didn't want to fight 10 of us and I had the POWER to send them all back to their units...if he agreed to walk to the security room of his CHOICE. If he didn't I was very concerned that someone, ( here's where the affect comes in) someone, would get hurt.
He said "Can you really do that"? I said yes, in an instant. He agreed to walk, I took a moment out in the hall to "dismiss" my back up. ( I sent them on an alternate route to the unit he chose just in case ).
He walked without further incident and even said he was sorry for hitting me.
I locked him anyway...he didn't mind, it was further proof of how dangerous and powerful he was.
I was sold on the verbal intervention! It would be 4 months before my next restraint, 2 weeks before I transferred out.